


My Father's Songs

by dirtybinary



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ADWD spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtybinary/pseuds/dirtybinary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon Connington being loyal and in love at Summerhall, on the Rhoyne, and in another battle on the Trident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Father's Songs

i.

                  Summerhall was alive. 

                  Jon could hear the wind stirring in the dry grass that had sprung up between the cracked flagstones, the leaves skittering across the floor of the ruined hall. Overhead, sparrows rustled sleepily in their unseen nests. The moon was a pale sickle, peeping in where the roof was missing, giving barely enough light to see by. He had thought himself well-concealed, cloaked in shadow, his footfalls muffled by the night noises.

                  But his prince knew he was here.

                  He heard Rhaegar stop several yards ahead, heard the scrape of steel loosed in scabbard. "Whoever you are," the prince called into the dark, "I know you are here. Come out and show me your face."

                  He was discovered. There was no sense in alarming Rhaegar, so Jon slipped out from behind a fallen pillar and stepped into the sheaf of silvery moonlight that slanted in from a crack in the ceiling. They were in an antechamber that adjoined what had once been a feast hall, he judged, but not for love or gold could he have found his way back out of the castle alone. "I beg your pardon, my prince."

                   Rhaegar's eyes softened at once, but the line of his shoulders stayed taut. "Jon? Did my father send you?"

                  "King Aerys?" Jon was taken aback, and more than a little offended. Did Rhaegar take him for a spy? "Of course not. I only thought—it might not be safe here, and Ser Arthur told me you came alone—"

                  Rhaegar relaxed, sliding his sword back into the sheath. If he had been a man for smiles he would have smiled just then. ( _Right here, for me, alone_ , Jon thought, and the possibility was almost as good as the real thing.) "That's kind of you. I assure you, I shall be quite safe here. The tragedy of Summerhall is long over."

                  Jon did not know what to make of that. He felt ill at ease and out of place here. Summerhall was a ruin of moonlight and shadow, of sorcery and grief; it felt like an extension of Rhaegar himself, and to have come here uninvited seemed almost as dreadful a violation as all the other things he had dreamt about. "I'll stay with your horse, then," he said, turning to go. They could ride back together to the inn at dawn. That would have been quite enough for him. 

                  But Rhaegar caught him by the wrist and held him back. Even through Jon's thick lambswool sleeve, the brush of his fingers was almost too much to bear. "You came all this way. It would please me if you stayed."

                  Jon swallowed. He could feel himself start to sweat. _Idiot_ , he cursed himself. _Are you a man or still a blushing boy?_ "As you command."

                  "It wasn't a command."

                  They started to walk again. A massive wall loomed ahead, overgrown with moss, but a slab of it had been snapped off and lay in pieces around their feet like a half-eaten wafer. Rhaegar led the way through the breach. He had his harp slung over his back, Jon saw. When he followed his prince through the wall, he found himself standing on a battlement overlooking the inner courtyard. Weeds had overrun the green, and the marble pool was clogged with dead leaves, but the place still had something of a tousled hamadryad charm to it.

                  "It's nothing like Griffin's Roost," Rhaegar said. "I wasn't expecting guests." He gave Jon a fleeting sideways look. His eyes seemed to drink the moonlight, turning to pale lilac from their usual purple.

                  "It has an eerie beauty," said Jon fervently, unsure if he was speaking of the palace or the prince.

                  "It does," said Rhaegar. He unslung his harp and set it on the floor, but made no move to play it. "Forgive me for asking if my royal father sent you. I didn't think so, but I had to be sure."

                  Jon leaned out over the battlement, letting the wind stir his hair. If he closed his eyes he could imagine it was fingers. "The king," he said, hesitant. "Does His Grace spy on you?"

                  "His Grace spies on everyone," said Rhaegar bitterly. "The Spider tells him of my every move. Where I go, whom I meet, what I say. He's poisoned my own father against me. I'm convinced he's plotting some treason against our House, but—why? We've honoured him, promoted him beyond reason. What more does he want?"

                  "Arrest him," Jon suggested. He had no patience for the schemes and whisperings of the Red Keep. "Have him questioned sharply."

                  "That will only confirm my father's suspicions that I mean him ill," said Rhaegar. "He thinks every shadow is conspiring against him. I swear, he'll turn Viserys mad if we give him half a chance. The poor boy must be fostered elsewhere, maybe with my wife's family… but when I dared suggest as much to His Grace, he struck me."

                  Jon stared, outraged. "He struck you? But you're his heir, the crown prince, he—"

                  In his blind fury he might almost have committed a few treasons of his own, but Rhaegar took his arm again and he forgot what he had been about to say. "And he is the king. Jon, you sweet blazing fool, be careful. You are watched as closely as I am. My father will make use of your loyalty, but he has no love for you."

                  The words seemed to drive a chill into his bones. "Me? I've given him no cause to dislike me."

                  "None of us have," said Rhaegar. "But you are always with me, and he knows… he knows that if I pit myself against him, you will stand with me. He will try to win you away with gold and titles and flattery, you mark my words. Tread cautiously."

                  "I don't need any of that," said Jon at once. The only son of Armond Connington had no need to scrape and grovel before kings. "I'll speak sweetly to him and show him every courtesy, but my prince, you know whose man I am. Never doubt me."

                  "Not for one heartbeat. But you must not speak so freely in the Red Keep. Only here, where we are alone with the ghosts." Rhaegar seated himself on a chunk of toppled masonry and drew his harp to him. "Now you understand why I have to come here. A song cannot brew and take shape when too many ears are listening."

                  "Then I _should_ go," said Jon, abashed. His prince had only wanted to be alone.

                  "No," said Rhaegar, and now he did smile, and Jon struggled for breath against a constricting chest. "I should like you to listen to this one."

 

 

 

ii.

                  The harpstrings twanged, a discordant note above the Rhoyne's soft laughter.

                  "Seven hells," said Duck, throwing his cloak up over his head. "You make every note sound like a lance breaking. Stop, lad, I pray you."

                  "Griff won't like that," said the boy. He stopped playing all the same, and peace returned over the _Shy Maid_ 's deck _._ "Griff wants me to learn the bloody harp. He says my father was good at it." He skimmed a stone out over the water. It bounced twice and sank with a splash. "I'm sure he made that up. My father won tourneys and fought rebels and wrote poetry in four languages. At which point did he have time for music as well?"

                  Griff came up on his elbow. He had been lying on his wolf pelt on the cabin roof, trying to lose himself to another world, but the halts and fumbles in the song kept jarring him back to reality. "Your father made men and women alike weep with his harp. You too, but for an entirely different reason."

                  Duck guffawed. The boy scowled, aiming a kick at the big knight's shins. "And you, false father?" he asked. "Did he make you weep?"

                  The boy was sharper than he looked, though good-natured and without malice. "Once," Griff said lightly. "Go inside, it's time for your lesson with Lemore."

                  Aegon abandoned his harp with unseemly haste, but instead of going into the cabin he clambered up to join Griff on the roof. He would be fifteen the next moon turn, and was less biddable than he had been, but that was to be expected. Griff was only thankful he seemed to have somehow escaped his grandfather's madness, his father's melancholy, and his mother's frailties. "Did you know him well?" the lad asked. "Prince Rhaegar, I mean."

                  "Once," said Griff again. He sighed. They had trod this ground before.

                  "There you go again," Aegon complained. "A boy can't even ask a question without you freezing solid. What songs did my father play? Which one made you weep?"

                  It was no song any of them would know. All of Rhaegar's compositions had died with him on the Trident. "Not _The Queen Took Off Her Sandal, The King Took Off His Crown_ , that's for sure. Who taught you that one?"

                  Aegon flashed a grin. "Septa Lemore."

                  Griff groaned. Lemore was good at playing the pious lady when she put her mind to it, but she had a wicked sense of humour. "She may be the first septa to corrupt a boy, rather than the other way round."

                  "Oh, I am pure as snow, Lord Griff." But the smile soon faded from his lips. "Tell me true, would my father have been disappointed that I could not play the harp? Would it have mattered to him?"

                  "No," said Griff at once. Gods, what had he done? Why had he ever insisted that Lemore teach the boy to play? "Not in the least. Songs will not win you Westeros, only swords. You need not learn if you dislike it."

                  Aegon looked relieved. "I don't dislike it," he said quickly, as if to reassure Griff. "It helps to pass the time. One day you must teach me some of my father's songs."

                  He slithered down from the roof and went inside. The harp lay forgotten on the deck. Rhaegar would have winced to see it so maltreated, Griff thought. He vaulted down to fetch the instrument and store it someplace dry, but instead he found himself standing by the rail with the harp cradled in his hands. It was a battered little thing, the strings always out of tune from the river mists, a far cry from the magnificent one Rhaegar used to play. And the son was not the father either, Griff reminded himself: loud, brash, quick to laugh where Rhaegar had been sad-eyed and solemn. They barely even looked alike, and the boy's eyes were the wrong colour. 

                  But there was no point in comparing the two. That way lay madness, and it was hardly fair to Aegon. The night in Summerhall was long past. All he had left was the boy and the battered harp, and he would cherish them both with a love as fierce as death.

 

 

 

iii.

                  The battle swept around the riverbank under the midday sun. Prince Aegon Targaryen hacked and slashed like a madman on the frontline, with his Hand on his right and the first of his Kingsguard on his left. He had insisted on leading the charge, and as far as Connington was concerned, he had just damned them all to seven hells.

                  But their bloodlust was up, and the world seemed to slow to a standstill. Connington swung his sword with all the strength left in his half-stone fingers, and interposed his griffin shield now and then, keeping one eye on his prince. Aegon had lost his helm, and his silver hair—blue-grey in truth, the Tyroshi dye was stubborn—blew wildly around his head. It was passing queer, Connington thought, that it should come down to the Trident again. He hadn't been here the first time round, but now he was, and perhaps history did give second chances. 

                  As if the thought had summoned him, the press of spearmen gave way abruptly, and a knight with a warhammer came riding out at them.

                  _Not Robert_ , Connington realised after the initial shock. This man was too slight, the sigil on his plate unfamiliar. But it made no difference. The knight was coming straight for Aegon, and one hammer was just as lethal as another. Connington spurred his horse and rode up to meet him.

                  The man's visor was up, the better to spot the prince in the press of bodies. It was absurdly easy to drive the point of his sword into his foe's eye and yank it back out, so easy Connington laughed as he did it. The man dropped his hammer in the mud and went sliding down after it. Connington lowered his sword and watched him fall, imagining there were antlers on his helm, remembering how the bells had tinkled and boomed at Stoney Sept.

                  He never saw the blade arc towards him, never even felt its bite, but he did hear Aegon scream his name.

                  When the pain cleared he was on the ground, half in the water. He could not tell if his horse was lying on him or if he was lying on the horse. Aegon was kneeling over him, gripping his gauntleted hand. "Jon," he called. There were tears on his face, but he seemed calm. " _Jon_."

                  "I'm here," he tried to say, but the words frothed soundlessly on his lips. "Watch your back." Couldn't the boy see that the fighting was still going on? Why was he so foolhardy, and where the hell was Duck? "Get up, leave me, I'm done."

                  "That you are," said Aegon. His hair streamed out behind him, bright as molten silver. When had it gotten so long? "Come now, you can't help the boy. Come with me."

                  He was talking nonsense. Nothing made sense. The sounds of battle had faded away, the world gone dark. As far as Connington could tell, they were quite alone. The fighting must be over, he decided, and they must have won, or Aegon would not be here. "Bring the Halfmaester. I can't move."

                  "Be quiet," said Aegon. "Let me take you away. What were you thinking, charging ahead by yourself like that?"

                  _His eyes_ , Connington thought with a sudden painful jerk. His eyes were a deep purple, his hair moonlight and shadow. It was not Aegon. For an instant he could not think. "There was a knight," he explained, thickly, laboriously. He had to make Rhaegar understand. It was beyond important that he understood. "There was a knight with a warhammer."

                  "There was," Rhaegar agreed. "A song came to me while I was watching you fight. I need my harp. Will you come, or must I leave you here?"

                  "I'm coming," said Connington. "I promised." He let Rhaegar help him to his feet, and followed his prince into the dark.


End file.
